A Little Continuation to Something Cinderellaish
by Waifine
Summary: Kyo did not think himself any more fit for Happy Endings than he had thought himself fit for the part of the Prince in the school play. Tohru, however, was never one to give up on Happily Ever Afters, with the Sohmas or in fairy tales. After Manga Ch. 88
1. The Question No One Should Have Answered

"Tohru!" Kyo hopped down the hall, and balanced himself on the doorframe that led to the staircase that led to the second floor. "Tohru!" He really did not want to have to hop all the way up the stairs as well. It was winter, the floor was cold, and he was missing a sock.

"Y-Yes?" And there was that stuttered cry of alarm and surprise. Kyo wrinkled his nose in annoyance. He had found that the one thing that always managed to be more irritating than whatever he was irritating him at any given time, was realizing that he was taking that irritation out on Tohru.

"Eh, well!-" a pair of blessedly socked feet appeared on the stairs, and down she descended, a brown haired girl of petite build with the most staggering brown eyes that any boy in his late teens should ever be forced to endure and live with under the same roof.

"Yes? What? Kyo! Are you limping? Is your leg alright!" He compressed his fist gently to her forehead, something that out of earshot Shigure had once labeled as 'affectionate.'

"Relax. Breath. I need a sock. I just checked in the dryer, and I only found the one. Ya know where the other one might be?"

Tohru's eyes widened in even greater alarm, making her seem all the more… more… Anyway, her eyes darted down to his feet- sorry, foot, and then back up to his face, nodding her head furiously. "It had a hole in it from when you were walking around the stage during the Cinderella rehearsals and snagged the plywood, remember? I was patching it up, and I forgot that I was washing the rest of your clothes, and I forgot to get to fresh socks and," he opened his fist, intertwined his fingers in her hair, and now slapped her forehead with his palm as he brought it up against her head.

"Jeez, you need to relax. And why'd you go fixing it anyway? I could have just bought new socks."

He was not exactly certain what the feeling meant or how it worked, but every time those eyes widened just a little more his heart picked up the pace just that much more as well. And those eyes were now looking at him as if he had said the unthinkable. She had even turned a little red with the indignation. "But they're your favorite! So… so I thought…" as had so often happened to her in the past, she seemed to be having trouble getting into words what it was she had on her mind. It reminded him of that episode that had taken place during the school play a few days ago:

Hanjima had been delivering a speech that she could not have known would be as pointiest as it was to the recipient. "Do you plan to go on living… always fooling yourself like that…? Inside the castle… Locking yourself away inside the castle?" It had been _meant_ for 'Prince Charming,' or whatever. It had _nicked _at Kyo Sohma.

"And if that were the case am I bothering anyone by doing so?" As he said it he had to wonder if he was not being masochistic. After all, he had meant the question in earnest, but of course no one would – could – answer.

And then…she had. Tohru, playing the role of 'the evil stepsister,' looking like an angel in a pink dress, had stuttered. "How things go…I'm… That sort of thing…" her voice faltered, and she had tired again. "I'm…that sort of thing…"

And then she had erupted into her apologetic gibberish as she did now. It made him so very uneasy… and so very, very alive.

"Gah! I'm so sorry! The laundry must have been done hours ago, and I didn't fold it! I just… I _was _writing and… and…" There was that red flush again. "I _am _going to go do it now!" She said, clenching her little hand into a fist, her face taking that overly-enthusiastic look that had much more weight behind it that Kyo had originally supposed when they had first met.

And then she tried to move, and his fingers were still in her hair. "Tish," he rolled his eyes in annoyance, extending his fingers, and allowing her to slip out of their reach freely. Did his hand hover there a moment too long? Did his fingers flex instinctively at the loss of her, wanting her back? Well, it did not matter in the least, seeing as she had already turned her back on him and was hurrying down the hall. He was alone now. And his left leg was getting very tired, and his right foot was getting very cold.

And his missing sock was a staircase, a hallway, and a girl's room away. Fantastic.

_Hop._ He could just have called her back and asked her to get it for him. _Hop._ No, that would have been selfish and lazy and the sort of thing that damn Dog, _Hop._ Or that damn Snake, _Hop._ The brother of that damn Rat– _Hop._ –Would have done. _Hop._ But then, was it alright to enter a girl's room? _Teeter._ Oh God, maybe he should call for her after all. And… _Hop._

Kyo balanced himself again as he got to the top of the stairs. The floor was so. freakin'. cold. Kyo was now decided: The second Shigure got home Kyo was beating the crap out of him for breaking the heater… and then _leaving_ for the Main House. And Yuki was off with the rest of his Student Council click. Tish. Figured that Yuki would have a click. Everybody's favorite she-male.

So there he stood, Kyo Sohma, at what he believed was quite literally the threshold to the abyss. He suddenly felt a little jealous of Damned going to Hell. At least they got to go with both feet firmly planted. He teetered again. Swallowed. And then… he reached for the door handle.

It was not that he had never been in Tohru's room before. He had even been there alone with Tohru, like the time she had been sick and he had made her God's most heinous creation: Leak Soup. But never, in the year and a half that he had known her, had he been in Tohru's room _alone._ He half expected the door to creak ominously when he pushed it open.

There was the table on which she kept her most prized possessions – a photograph of her mother having been given a prominent position – there was the massive bed Shigure had given her, which Kyo still found rather suspicious and under-handed, though it had been almost a year and a half since then, and there were the other pieces of furniture, like closest and bookshelf and such, that shaped the room of Tohru Honda.

And there, on the yellow blankets of her bed, next to a booklet and a few writing utensils, and clear as day, was an orange wooly sock.

"Aha!" Idiotic, yes, but sheer relief swept over him as he realized that he would not have to be going through different drawers in search of a sewing kit, potentially finding articles of clothing very different from socks… or, indeed, anything he might wear.

One, two, three hops and he was across the room and plopped down happily on her bed. As he pulled the sock up off the bed he saw that the needle was still dangling off a string but that the sock itself had been stitched up and was ready for use.

He bit through the string that attached the needle to his sock and placed it gingerly on her bedside table. He would have to later tell her where he put the needle so that she did not accidentally swipe it off onto the floor. _She even got the same shade of orange string... _

Contrary to popular belief, Kyo did not have a vast amount of orange clothing. His hair was an orange that often made people think he had dyed it, and his red-brown eyes had thrown the question of 'Do you wear contacts?' at him more than once, but no, he did not wear a lot of orange. Orange was his favorite color, but even he could not ignore how horribly it clashed with his hair on most days. In fact, his favorite hoodie had been a light blue. Had been, because an overly-love-sick relation of his named Kagura Sohma had, rather than letting evaporation take its course or attempting the dryer, tried to ring it out… and torn it to pieces.

His favorite socks _were_ orange and more importantly, they were warm. He had been very, very pissed when one of them had gotten a hole in it while he was rehearsing on the stage at school. The whole damn play had been nothing but a pain in the ass.

Kyo slipped the sock onto his foot, and rubbed it repeatedly, trying to get the warmth going. He looked about the room again, feeling a good deal more at ease than he had five minutes ago. Something was pressing into his side, and he looked down at the bed. It was one of the pencils that had been lying on the bed, and had now rolled against him with the slope he had made by sitting down. He picked it up and moved it away onto a portion of the bed where the surface was still even. The notebook was also teetering towards him. He shoved it after the pencil and the pages flipped backwards a few leafs, and he saw his name.

It was in a list of others, and he really did not mean to read any more than he did, or even as much as he did. Kyo just caught his name on a line, so he read the entire line: 'Prince – Kyo Sohma,' and then, to get the general idea, and without really thinking, he read on. 'Step-sister – Tohru Honda' 'Cinderella – Saki Hanajima,' and finally 'Step-mother Mimami Kinoshita.' It was a list of the casting to the crap play they had performed. Why on earth had she re-written it? If she really wanted to remember the pain-in-the-ass affair she had a video tape of it. The very thought made Kyo shudder. But still, if that was the case, why had she left out Yuki's name? It was not at all like her to just forget. And the cast was listed in a different order too. He smirked. Maybe she _did_ forget that damn Rat.

Still, lazily his eyes traveled up to her title. 'Something Cinderella-ish' was what he was expecting. What the rest of the text underneath the casting was, he really did not think he would care to know. Had she re-written the enter play by hand even after receiving a scri-

His thought process truncated there because his mind registered the title. 'A Little Continuation to _Something Cinderella-ish,_ Our Class Play.' The title spanned across two lines in very neat girl's handwriting.

"What the…?" Kyo had no idea that Tohru liked to dabble. But then, he did not know much at all about her hobbies. Over the years she had remained just as much of a mystery to the Sohmas as they remained to her.

For the first time since he had spotted his name Kyo suddenly asked himself if it would not be more moral to close the little book now. At this point he was doing exactly what he had come into her room dreading to do: he was looking at Tohru's private possessions. Had martial arts not honed his mind as well as his body? Discipline. Honor. Respect. Sure, even _he_ knew that he was loud and obnoxious and all those other things that people accused him of… but he was not immoral. He was resolute in that.

But then, since he had met Tohru he had felt himself being slowly stripped of many of his resolute principles, his hatred for Yuki to begin with… his sanity not too far behind.

Without moving, without even breathing, only his eyes made a movement. They flickered down the first page as he made the decision that he would leave the room without a second glance, and nothing but the shame of his indecision, unless he found either his or the 'Prince's name on this first page at least…

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six…. His part in the actual play (as 'actual' as _Something Cinderella-ish _could get,) had not begun until Act II, without even a hint of it on page one of the original-class-modified text. He swallowed. Honor. Discipline. Restraint. But another course of thought was beginning to erode his rational thinking. Those fragments of an answer to the question no one ought to have answered. That stuttered cover-up of a conclusion. Maybe… maybe she explained that… here. He did not want to know. He told himself that he did not want to know.

"_How things go…I'm… That sort of thing…I'm…that sort of thing…" _

If it was as he had imagined it on the stage… No, she could not… But what she did… Then it would lead to _nothing_ but pain and regret for the both of them. Again, Honor and Virtue dictated that he should not even _think_ about such an possibility. That if ever any… affection… if ever she did entertain any such emotion, then he should _eradicate_ it, both for her happiness…Kyo's eyes flicked to the photograph of her mother on her table. He could just see it from this angle… And for the general Right.

He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath._ It's just a diary. Just something the air-head wrote in her free time… when she should have been folding laundry. What the Hell am I freaking out about?_ The truth was, what if he read it, and did not find what he was looking for? _It's like I'm scared of a fairy-tale. Not even. A teenage freakin' sequel to a fairy-tale rip-off._ All this he was thinking just to drown out the real current of his thoughts.

He _did_ want to know. He did. He wanted to know, and maybe her concern for him…know if it was just as it was for Shigure and his breakfast and Yuki with his ties or if… if it was something _more._

_I really am a masochist._ They were hardly the appropriate thoughts before reading a story written by a teen-age girl as a continuation to a rather disastrous performance of Cinderella.

Kyo began to read.

…

This will be a three chapter long story, which I will probably finish over the weekend. I'm also doing a fan-art to Something Cinderella-ish for Deviantart! May you profit from this pointless trivia.

A request within a fan-fiction: Could any of you KyoxTohru fans be roused into writing a little fan-fiction about their life at the 'distant land dojo' after the end of the manga? With Kyo at the dojo and Tohru at the university and all the little delicious jealousies and intrigues that go on about them and their handsome & cute selves? Just throwing the plot bunny out there.


	2. Once Upon a Time

Remember, this chapter was written by Tohru.

…

_I'm not going to call everyone by their cast names all the time, because I think it would be odd for me to keep referring to myself as 'the step sister.' This is just for the me of later not to get confused as to why the me of now wrote the way I did. Enjoy, Me-Later!_

Everything was really quiet in the Yakinku Shop. It was pretty early in the morning, and no one would start wondering in till about lunch time. So Tohru, Cinderella's step-sister, rinsed her face in the sink to wake herself up, and decided to go for a walk while she was still free. Her mother always slept late and Cinderella wandered about at night for a long while, so she wouldn't be leaving her room before just-before-lunch hours either.

It was really a wonderful place, the Yakinku Shop. The Royal House of Sohma had given her and her family so much, financing Cinderella's shop like this! She meandered though the place and opened the door to a gentle creaking of the hinges and a tinkling from the bell. There was Uotani, the prince's right hand man, (Uo-chan was a man in the play,) who was always ready for a fight and would never hesitate to protect those that mattered. There was the extended family, which always made her feel comfortable, polite and kind as they all were. And there was the master of the Palace hounds, Shigure, who had always been funny and was always there for her when she truly needed help. She had been confused by him at first, though she had never told this to anyone. There were moments when he had laughed at her to her face when she had been quite upset, but every time she would turn to leave there would be his hand on her shoulder and, still through giggles she could not understand, he would help her.

The story… was not about her. It was about Cinderella. But Tohru did love those evenings when her sister's Magician would appear into the kitchen in a whirl of sparks. She loved being able to take his hat and hang it up with the others, and sit with him at the table in the back room, cutting vegetables or looking over books on different flowers and trees that grew in this magical kingdom. There were so many magical, beautiful things in this world that she had never known of before this Story with the Sohmas began…

Tohru squatted down in the road in from of the shop, careful not to let her dress skim through the dust as she did so, and waited. She licked her lips a little and then let out a gentle purr. And another. And then, there he was. The ginger cat she loved so much. He didn't like being around people too much, which made her all the more honored that, when she announced her presence, he deemed her worthy of his beautiful, warm company. She opened her arm and, his face being that of one resigned to act for someone else's enjoyment, he came to her. It was always like that. He had expressions like a human, and he never leapt into her arms contentedly like a rabbit might have done.

But he really was beautiful, she thought as she stood up again, now with the ginger cat in her arms. She could feel his body bloat and contract with every breath he took, and she remembered again how very happy she was that they, Cinderella, the hounds' master, Uotani and the Magician, were all alive and there with her.

"Let's go for a walk, alright?" she said, her voice very quiet in the morning air. With the cat in her arms, she began the brisk walk down the cobblestone road, her buckled boots clomping loudly as she went. The cat looked up at her sulkily, as if idly incredulous that any creature could be so awkward and loud, while he himself had such silent silken paws. Tohru just smiled at him and took one of his paws between her fingers. It really was silken, she reflected, as she rubbed it playfully. But she also knew that his now hidden claws were very long and certainly something to be avoided. They had once made short work of one of the Magician's hats.

She was glad he was a cat. He was haughty sometimes and cross, but she could do things with him which, if he had been a transported Prince (like those that sometimes cropped up at frog ponds) he might never have let her tuck him under her coat and share her warmth when it rained, as she had done last week, when they had still had to go a good distance to get back to the house. And he might never have let her pet him as she so dearly loved. Tohru smiled and began to wrack her fingers through that coarse, straw-like ginger hair, rubbing bits of fur between her fingers to admire the color and settling her palm firmly against his stomach so that she could again feel his beating heart and the rising and falling of his belly.

_I think I'll go to the bakery,_ she thought. And it was still so early… perhaps the morning market had not closed yet and she could get the cat some tuna. Then, with her hand still on the cat's belly, her favorite thing in the world happened. He purred. Tohru grinned outright, with eyes only for the ginger cat. His red eyes had closed a little, and he had relaxed in her arms. She loved this and could not for the life of her understand why more people did not take the time to pet his fur and hold him close, because he was such a beautiful creature.

She thought back to another creature with ginger colored hair that, for the last few weeks… she had also dared to consider beautiful. Absentmindedly she hoisted the cat a bit higher and kissed it on the top of its hard head. It purred again, and she smiled into its fur. Admittedly, she had first liked this other being because he had reminded her of the cat. Now, however, she had to wonder if every time she took up this or any other cat and smiled at it, if it wasn't because the cats reminded her of him.

Kyo. 'Prince' Kyo. The very thought of these feelings seemed silly! She could hardly admit it to herself without feeling foolish. She knew what other people would think, though they never suspected that she knew. She was an outsider. He was born to live in seclusion. Birth right stood against them. She was quiet. He was hot tempered. Nature stood against them. And for all she knew, his own _opinion_ of her stood against anything that might have been called 'them.' The cat puffed up in her arms a little. She had squeezed him a little too tightly. But the stolen moments she had spent with him, Kyo, were precious gems to her. He was the 'landlord' of Cinderella's Yakinku Shop, and so he stopped by there frequently. She had not expected it to be so easy to get moments alone with him, and sometimes she dared to foolishly fantasize that he wished for such moments as she much as she did. Silly really. Still, it was something to hope for, if only in a fairy tale.

She sighed and looked in though the glass window of the patisserie that she was now in front of, with freshly baked scones and pastries just behind the glass. Perhaps she should have come later in the day with her sister's and mother's orders. Both of them loved pastries. She smiled. She liked sweets herself. "Alright," she said, tangling her fingers messily into the ginger cat's fur once more. "We'll go here first, and then we'll go buy you some fish." His warm body reverberated against her fingers. She loved to touch, to hold him so.

Half an hour later she was sitting on the curb of a street, a paper bag of pastries by her side on the pavement, and the cat prostrated on her lap, something else he would never have done if he were some Prince._ The_ Prince.

She watched with silent fascination as she gave him another tuna and how, at shocking speed, his head drew forward and he nipped it from her fingers.

They, the other members of the Souma house, considered the Prince an outcast.

Those little teeth sunk into the fish once.

But really, he was just like the cat.

Twice.

Claws, teeth, sultry nature. Creature or Monster or whatever it was they called him.

And the fish vanished down in a swallow.

Tohru walked back home slowly, pasties and tuna in the bag on one hip; cat on the other. They ostracized him. Perhaps pitied him. But she, (was it wicked of her?) she often found herself pitying them. She loved him, Kyo, as he was. A cat with such fur. A man with such a beautiful contented smile that so few took the time to find. And she pitied those who could only look and see a monster, and nothing else. "I'm back!" she called as she backed in through the front door into the shop. As ever, when she crossed one foot over the threshold the cat stiffened in her arms, flexed its powerful legs, and leap away from her, back to the outside before she herself could fully make it into the house. Tohru hovered there on the threshold for a moment and watched as the cat smoothed himself out and arch his back beautifully.

She had seen the Prince in combat before. It was the same. How could anyone, in cat or man, ever reject such palpable strength and beauty? Of all the mysteries about the Sohmas, it was this simple matter that confounded her the most.

His ears perked up and he became still. Then… he was off. Tohru blinked after him as the ginger cat shot around the corner and out of sight. It took her a few moments longer than the cat to hear it: the sound the carriage wheels and horses' hooves. Her eyes widened at what it must mean. After all, carriages did not commonly pass through the network of the town, but kept to the main roads.

"Gah! Mother! Cinderella!" He was coming. He was actually coming. Tohru stopped at the stairs for half a moment, "Mother! Cinderella! Kyo is coming!" It actually felt really wonderful to shout it out for the world to here. 'Kyo is coming.' It would have been wonderful to shout out to the world every single day.

Motion and sound erupted on the second floor as Tohru's mother leapt into action, rousing living Hell and Cinderella along with it. Rushing into the kitchen behind the store, dumping the bag of pasties on the table, pulling the container of tuna out and sliding it towards the ice-box, Tohru looked around frantically for a mirror to fix herself up.

How often had this been a problem? How often, when he had come upon her unexpectedly, when she had heard the door open as it did now, or his voice at the entrance, how often had she wished there was a mirror in the kitchen? "Tish," A small, trivial whim, and certainly one that would have gained suspicion if fulfilled. After all, there was no real purpose to a mirror in the kitchen… except that it was the place that Kyo usually went first, and the place where she usually was when he did come.

He really could not have known what his presence did to her. It was the same every time he walked in through that door. And it had only gotten infinitely worse over time. First she had been able to appraise him with admiration, even 'friendship,' but it had only been so long until that began to change. She did not know if it was because her own resolve was weakening, or because he was just getting through to her now.

However it had occurred, the situation now stood that every time that orange mop of unruly hair appeared before her she felt her knees go weak. He really could not know…

He was just leaning against the door frame to the kitchen.

"K- Your Highness," she curtsied graciously. At least, she hoped it was gracious. It was probably as awkward as could be.

"Hey." He nodded in acknowledgment. He sighed. "Thank God it's you! I thought that if I came this early I could avoid your freaky sister," he said, now tilting back onto his own two legs and walking into the kitchen fully.

Tohru looked up. "Um… I… "

"Yo! Sorry for the sudden call-in Tohru, but if Orange-Top didn't come now he would've lost his nerve, right?" Uo-chan, Kyo's friend and tormentor, appeared next to him. He ruffled the Prince's hair endearingly.

"SAY WHAT? Ya know, you could just as well have stayed home, you-"

"Your Highness?" Tohru's mother cried from the stairs.

Uo-chan's grip tightened on Kyo's hair. "Right. Diversionary tactics. Leave the hag to Shigure, and Cinderella," Uotani smiled dashingly, "to me… That is, if she even got up… LATER!"

And with that, Kyo and Tohru were alone again. What a really silly fairy tale picture this was. But, even if it was, is, only possible in a fairy tale, it's really nice.

Within moments Shigure's voice was bouncing off every corner of the house, singing every syllable in that bombastic way of his, detouring Tohru's mother from going any further. Dear Shigure.

"So, how've you been?" Kyo said, closing the door behind him and walking around the kitchen. He looked at this labeled bottle or that string of drying herbs. The clatter beyond was now somewhat muffled through the door.

"_Fine!"_ It really was a wonder to her that he didn't ever seem to notice that her voice became so much higher when he was there. But then, it had probably been shifting gradually over time, like her heart. The one time Kyo had arrived while the Magician was present Tohru had wondered if _he_ had noticed the difference.

Kyo and the Magician did not get on any better than the cat and the Magician's hat. But then, they were such completely different entities. Yet they both managed to be so marvelously exceptional. The Magician… he was calm, and quiet, and Tohru knew that many had though him to be a 'perfect match' for her. His beauty and refinement was like that of blown glass, appearing brittle as could be, but sharper than a knife if wrongly touched. Kyo… he was forward and outspoken and had learned from experience that he alone could hope to let the world know who and what he was. He, and it was a silly allusion, but to Tohru he was like a tree: growing, sometimes bending in harsh winds, but becoming stronger, fueled by some invisible force of the Earth which other's couldn't hope to draw from. She would have loved to be ivy… to just wrap herself around him… because his strength and his warmth offered her so safe and wonderful a hold.

"… I said, are you alright?"

"_FINE!" _Oh god! How often had that happened? How often had she stared like that, captivated by him, without realizing it? But again she had to wonder why the entirety of his family didn't see what was enough to rid her of concentration.

And he was smirking. Probably laughing at her. Then he sighed. The room was quiet again.

"Sir, if there is something you wish to tell me please…do not hesitate."

He blinked at her in surprise. She had thought right! People…so often people marveled at her perception. Ha! If only they _knew _how apprehensive she was to voice her thoughts to others, for fear of being wrong. If only he knew the absolute _warmth _she felt when, with him, she was always, always right.

"The King demands that I forfeit all such indulgences as 'supporting' this store, and that I should stop mingling with…"

He could say it. She had heard it often enough. 'Commoner.' Did he think that it bothered her? It did not. Or rather… it had not… until she had realized that 'commoner' and 'prince' were yet another force working against each other… and them.

Tohru did not speak. Did he mean what she thought he meant? Had it finally come? She felt cold. Hollow. She lived in fear of it. Every so often she would wake in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, trying to muffle her gasps of alarm, lest the ginger cat on the roof should hear her through her open window. The king would separate them. She had no place among such royals as the Sohmas. The king would separate them…

It's hard even to write about, even if it's just a fairy tale.

"I see," she turned away from him, and began unpacking the pasties from the bag. The sound of rustling paper was not loud enough to cover her sniffling, nor could it hide the quiver in her shoulders.

She felt fingers roll over her shoulder and a hand griped it firmly. "Crying again, Tohru?" He had seen her cry more times than any other person she could think of. Indeed, he was the only one who had _ever_ seen her cry. So often she would just begin to tear before him for reasons he could not have understood. He probably thought she was a total sob.

But she _wasn't._ She really wasn't! It was that… she felt it was alright not to smile in front of him. That was wrong and she knew it! After all, weren't people supposed to smile the_ most_ in front of people they cared about? But she spent so much time smiling… She didn't mind it. She hardly noticed it sometimes. But then he would appear, and it would be like a spring going loose inside her… and she would just shed every single smiling pretence. She really was very, very silly. And he probably didn't even like her.

"You know… when Uotani and I were going around getting that glass slipper fit on everyone," his voice was quiet. A whisper. "Yours was the only foot that was too small, rather than too big. Remember that?" Yes, she did. Funny what vain little things stuck in the memory.

There was something orange dangling in front of her face, and for one wild moment, she thought that it was the cat's tail.

"A sock," she said matter-of-factly.

"Ya. Sorry about the hole in it. It's from my favorite pair, if that makes up for it at all." He said, holding it in front of her.

She turned her head, and looked at him. He was leaning up from behind her, his face right by hers. His red eyes, which had been fixed forward at the sock, slid to meet hers. And he smiled nervously. That had been the first thing she had ever learned about him. Behind that hot temper was a warm, awkward smile.

"Right, so…If you'll let me," he drew away from her and gently turned her to face him, a hand on each of her shoulders, one still holding the sock. He then looked her in the face for a good solid moment before letting out a breath that she hadn't noticed he had taken, and glided down onto one knee.

"Kyo?"

All she could see was the top for that orange mop of hair as he bent over and firmly took up her foot from the floor. His fingers unclasped the buckle, pulled the leather strap loose, and he slid the bulky boot off her foot. He propped her foot on his raised knee, took the sock in both hands, and forced it on. He stilled for a moment and he raised his head the littlest bit, just enough for her to see those baked-clay eyes looking up at her. She swallowed nervously. He smiled and on the way back to her foot his eyes halted momentarily on her chest and his face took on a strange expression. Then he returned his gaze downward. Tohru glanced down at herself as well and saw that her front was completely covered in ginger cat hairs. Kyo reached into a leather pouch lashed to the belt around his waist. "Hope its okay without the silk cushion," he muttered and drew out a glass slipper. _The_ glass slipper.

"I… I thought… Cinderella…"

Kyo shrugged, not looking up at her but staring fixedly on her foot, "I guess with that Rat Mage puffing his glitter and all I forgot to give it to her in the end." Tohru knew what was coming. It wasn't that hard to guess. But it was one thing to know, and another to have Kyo take her wooly-orange-clad foot in hand and press the glass slipper onto it.

They'd both forgotten to breathe now. He gently moved the slipper about. It held. "Thank God," he whispered, sounding exhaustedly relieved. "It was the thickest pair I had and I still wasn't sure…" he looked up at her. "It's a way to keep the shop 'in the family,' and you wouldn't be a 'commoner.'" There was that blissfully awkward smile. "Marry me?"

Tohru nodded, mutely, slowly, and then more and more quickly, until her head was practically quivering uncontrollably and she thought she was going to cry again, and she threw her arms around his neck and toppled both of them. Her fingers fumbled with the ribbon that kept that glorious orange hair tamed in a ponytail. She felt it come loose in her hands and tangled herself in it as she'd always wanted to do.

She was happy he was a man and not a cat, because no _ordinarily _cat would have stood for such an embrace, as if she would never let him go. And there was defiantly no _ordinary _cat in the world that would have kissed her as he was kissing her now as Shigure, Uotani and Cinderella, who had been waiting silently behind the door, poured in upon them, the mother being kept at bay Cinderella's electric shocks.

Tohru would have kissed Kyo as anything, because she loved the ginger, sultry cat; she loved the powerful, awkward man, and god forgive her but she felt so sorry for those sad relatives who only saw a monster and could not see the treasure among them! She loved him utterly and entirely. And even if it's just a weird fantasy idea, I love him, and that feeling isn't, and never will be, a fairy tale.

…

I hope this makes sense to you readers, and not just in my own head. Please tell me what you think, and if anything should be clarified.


	3. Even If it's Just a Fairy Tale

Kyo's hands were trembling. Forget his hands, his _core_ was trembling.

The little things. He had to focus on the little things… like the 'Royal House of Sohma' … thing. What was that crap? As if being part of the actual Sohma House wasn't royalist pretence enough! Okay… good… good. And Shigure! Hounds' Master? The only other pun that could compare was Yuki being a 'Rat Mage.' And she'd kindly respected Yuki's wishes of being referred to as 'The Magician.' Ha. Rat-boy was the pansy-ass Fairy God Mother and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. And 'Hags?' She must've gotten the word from the Yankee to sound authentic or something. And that was another thing: The Yankee and 'endearing' were not meant to be placed in the same sentence. Sorry, but laws of freakin' common sense revolted. And funny how the one time he'd been about to swear she had covered it up with the word 'You-.' _And oh God she wanted to pet him._

… Now how had he let that last thought slip in there?

The book slipped from his fingers. _Move,_ he told himself. _MOVE!_ He got up. She wanted to pet him. Before his eyes was flashing every scene he could recall (and Tohru being the cat-lover she was, there were a lot of them) of her with random cats. Why the _Hell_ was a shiver going up his spine now that he thought about her scratching behind their ears? Jerkily he fumbled with her bed sheets and smoothed out the indentation where he'd been sitting. Not that it was anything suspicious. After all he'd come up here to get his sock. And even if the little book was jostled that could have been because he'd sat down and… She wanted to pet him. And he had to block out the rest of that story. Had to.

It was true; he didn't like being touched while he was a cat. Forget being touched. He didn't like being _seen._ It was embarrassing and shameful. And it was usually also pretty vexing because around Tohru it usually happened when he was trying to get as close to her as he could _without _transforming. But then, he had _never_…_ never _thought that she wouldn't mind his being a cat. Sure, he knew that she 'didn't mind,' or she would have left ages ago with a blank memory. But he had never even _considered_ that she 'didn't mind' as in… as in…

She wanted to pet him.

He swallowed hard. He had to get out of there. Out of this room. Shakily, far more shakily than he had entered, he left Tohru's room, shut the door behind himself, and leaned back on it. His mind, whatever was left of it, was traveling in directions that could not have been healthy. No, not in the directions that he had tried so often to suppress when thinking about Tohru, but still….directions.

Had she ever held a cat that _hadn't _purred within moments of her picking it up? All of a sudden he was seeing those slight nimble fingers coursing thought a thousand shaded of fur – but never orange. How good _was _she at petting? _This is just weird of me._ He raised a hand and placed it on the back of his neck where, if he was a cat…

_Screw 'what guys aren't supposed to think about girls!' This was crap__** humans**_ _shouldn't think about. Period!_ And all that junk about carrying the cat 'in her arms,' 'sharing her coat with him'… How the hell was he supposed to look at her with a coat on now! Granted, she had once offered to carry him in the rain as a cat… but he had thought it was out of good will alone! And he'd refused!...And why the Hell was he regretting it now!

She had carried him once though, after transforming. He had been so tired, having run from her the entire night. And she had been so warm…

_Beautiful… Warm… 'Considered her honor worthy…'_ Just where exactly did the fantasy of the story blur into truths she held about their lives? He wracked his brain as he walked down the hall. If only it wasn't winter. He could have used the time on the roof. As it was, his room would have to do. _'She loved to touch, to hold him so.' _He stilled on his own threshold now, shivers coursing up and down and up again. When he'd gotten to that part… he'd told himself that it was just a cat. It was orange, because that was a convenient color. Familiar.

'_She thought back to another creature with ginger colored hair that, for the last few weeks… she had also dared to consider beautiful.'_

The door clicked idle but did not close fully behind him. His sanity had shattered at that part. Him? Beautiful? He had to stop thinking. He took a deep breath to clear his head, staring blankly around his room. That 'deep breath' did Jack for him. Kyo couldn't even bother getting to his bed. He sat down or, to be more truthful, his knees gave in on him right where he stood beyond his door. He bent over, arms supporting him, blinking down at the floor. How could this have happened? How could he have _let _this happen? Sure, he had been hoping for a warm word, a favorable touch in some girly story, but not… _not._ He swallowed.

And she loved him. She loved him…

All those terrible, fantastic words: Beautiful, strong, wonderful. And all those times she picked up a cat in the street, or when he was in a temper and they swarmed at him… Had it really gotten to the point where she thought of him every time she held a cat?

She pitied the Sohmas.

Being the Demon Cat that he was, Kyo was accustomed to pity, to being felt sorry for. People had pitied the Cursed before. But they had always pitied and _despised_ the Cat most of all. And she… she pitied _them._ Dear, sweet, loving Tohru. All those times when the Cursed had come over to eat: Haru, Kagura, Momiji and all the rest of them. She had always greeted them with that air-head smile of hers, a laugh, a stutter… and _pity?_ He opened his mouth and took in a much shakier breath, his head swiftly falling forward against the floor. He curled up there, his fists taking in themselves.

_How?_

Every tradition that had been force-fed him as a boy, every instinct that had been inborn in him with the Cat Spirit, was in revolt. He had seen her overcome her fear of the Cat's true form when she came for him in the forest. He knew that she had chosen to believe in 'him' rather than the monster. But she_ pitied_ those who had not made the choice she had? She thought that everyone should be kind to the cat to better see his beauty? In a family where men turned to mice and women to horses, the thing she found most strange was that they could not accept _him!_

"… My brain will burst," he murmured into the floor.

Little things. He was thinking about little things again. And oh God how the little things rattled him. A mirror. She wanted a _mirror?_ For _him?_ Suddenly his head was reeling again from the shocked state it had been in moments before. When he came into the kitchen after school she was always skidding around frantically. Why? Now that he thought about it, Tohru didn't make dinner till about six. So why would she be running around frantically at three thirty? A mirror? _Really?_ Every time he walked into the bloody kitchen she wanted to look_ pretty_ for him?

He was sure that his face would burn a hole into the floor.

The story… it really _was_ about them. It wasn't really just a story at all! All that junk about _'There were so many magical, beautiful things in this world that she had never known of before this Story with the Sohmas began…' _etc, etc, and _damnit!_

He clamped his hands around his head and began to rock back and forward, still curled into a ball on the floor. What his presence did to her? Was it even fair for him to have to deal with that knowledge while she stayed ignorant of what her presence did to _him! It's your own damn fault. 'Martial art ethics?' Remember? That was you being tested and you just went and gave in. You stupid, __**stupid **__IDIOT! _

'_The one time Kyo had arrived while the Magician was present Tohru had wondered if **he**had noticed the difference.'_

Now Kyo bolted upright. Yuki… noticed? His pulled his hands from his hair, his fingers convulsing every few seconds. And Shigure? Damn it, why hadn't she said anything about Shigure's reaction in that story of hers? Did the pervert really have that 'writer's intuition' that he kept talking about. No… No. Hatori had disregarded it as bull, so it probably was. Again, Kyo tried to breathe steadily.

He blinked down at his floor, trying desperately to clear his head. But when he didn't think about how he himself featured in that story of hers, he thought about her… what she thought. _How _she thought.

It… surprised him, how much an air-head like her had picked up. That junk about her being a good match for Yuki, for one. Sure, that snake (and he meant it as an adjective) Ayame had made it no secret that he thought Tohru should 'belong to Yuki.'

And there the nausea set in.

Kyo shook his head, trying to concentrate on just blinking at the floor. Yes, after what his brain had just taken in even that was needing focus.

There were those side glances Shigure kept sliding at Tohru and Ratboy when they were together, though Kyo half suspected it was just to antagonize him into a response. And there were the rumors at school. True, they were mostly fueled by a crazy depraved fanclub squad, but still, Tohru was really quite 'secretly famous' because of her 'involvement' with the Prince. He furrowed his eyebrows. And she _knew?_ All of a sudden there was another aspect that most confusing of creatures. An aspect now staring him in the face. She knew what was expected of her, or what everyone expected her to do, and she, quietly, still didn't seem to care?

Now that was just way out of left field. Tohru, the Tohru that always smiled at the Cursed when they came the hang out at Shigure's, did not care that she was _expected_ to like Yuki. She _pitied_ the Sohmas and she liked… loved… him. Kyo.

He raised a hand up to his throat. It had become hard to swallow again. And then there was that little detail. Commoner. His fingers flexed instinctively before he was bought the uncomfortable reminder that they were still around his throat. _Damn, that diary unhinged me,_ he thought shaking his hand out wearily. But he was remembering Akito. Akito… trying to implant a seed of doubt and distrust in his head. 'Monster,' he had called her. Why? Because she had accepted him. Kyo smiled wryly now. How much did Tohru pity _him,_ he wondered. Monster. Commoner. Akito had hurtled them all out at Kyo and somehow Tohru knew as well.

The floor was cold. He'd forgotten that the floor was cold. Shakily he got back onto his feet. What was he going to do now?

"Kyo! If you're still cold you can come down here to the kitchen and warm yourself on the stove!" her voice floated up to him and nearly sent him into a heart attack. _What the_ hell _am I going to do!_

For a moment, he did nothing. Another moment passed. Then another. "Kyo?" Her voice came again, now filled with worry.

And he, more on instinct than from conscious thought, called back to alleviate her worry. "Coming!" Another moment. He sighed, braced himself, and rose. It was strange. Getting up felt as if it took more effort than it usually did and yet, at the same time, he felt that he was hardly present in his own body. He set his two, orange-shock-clad feet firmly on the ground, straightened up, and righted his shirt. _I can do this._ He didn't know exactly what it was he could do, but he could do it. Really.

Momentarily he looked around his own room, so different from Tohru's. Then, despite himself, he looked up to the ceiling. She woke up in the knight from nightmares… and hid her gasps for fear that he would notice while he was on the roof at night?

And once more his brain went reeling. How she cried. And he knew she cried. Of course she knew she cried. But he… he was the only one? Happy, silly Tohru. He had almost taken for granted that she had a sad side to her. Yet he was the only one? She could relax around him and him alone? Were they really that alike. Oh…

He needed to lean against the doorframe on the way out of him room. Just for a moment. Tish. She should see him now. A tree indeed. …Ivy… Kyo closed his eyes and gritted his teeth till his jaw hurt. How could someone so innocent as she write things which, to him were so… so…alluring.

He thought to how she bowled him over into the floor, tugged on his hair and kissed him.

Kyo froze. Then, with all of the stony resolve of a surgeon cutting off a limb, he turned to the wall in the hallway, and threw his head into it. …And there was a dent. He blinked at it through the pain. Fantastic. Shigure would be giving him Hell for that. …ouch.

"Kyo! Are you alright? Do you need help?"

"_I'M FINE!"_ he howled back down the stairs, telling himself that he was trying to massage his head while really going more along the rout of scalping himself. Silence form downstairs.

And now he felt like shit. No, wait, that was wrong. He already felt like shit. Now he just felt like shit _even more._ Yey.

…It was just that there were really so many things that Tohru could help him with right now. And before, when he had tried to convince himself that those sorts of thoughts were borderline-pedophilic, he now had a pretty good idea that she – in at least some censored, innocent versions of the same thoughts – wanted the same things.

In fact, according to her story, so many of those times that she spaced out in front of him, it was actually because she was thinking about those things. And how great he was.

Kyo stared down the straits in an almost contemplative state of might. What was he contemplating? Whether or not he should just dive down the straits headfirst and put himself out of his misery? It really just seemed like such a good idea. Shigure would have to deal with the paperwork. He wouldn't have to deal with his headache he now had. It just seemed like such a win-win situation.

Silence pervaded the house. Ah. Right. If he died now, he would never have apologized to Tohru. No go. Too bad.

Heavily, he made his way down the stairs_. Clear the streets girls and boys. 'Kyo is coming.' …Kyo is coming. _And she thought that would have been nice to shout out? Every day? He shook his head. He was on the first floor now, and made his way to the kitchen.

And there she was, the little novelist. Milling around, seemingly over nothing. "Hey," he said, walking in.

"Ah! There you are! I was worried something had happened to you! I told you it was warm here. There's the stove! I thought you'd fallen over or something! Or pricked yourself on my needle! It was in your sock. Oh, good, you're wearing your sock. I hope you're not wearing the needle too! That's very dangerous."

He couldn't help himself. He smiled. Only a little. "Relax, idiot," he said, walking past her and giving her one of his gentle punches to her forehead. Was this the smile that she liked so much? Had this been that first thing she had noticed about him? This smile? "I took the needle off and put it on your bedside table. Just don't sweep it off or get pricked on it yourself."

He didn't give her a second glance, but walked over to the oven. She had pried a crack open in it with a chopstick, and it radiated warmth. He allowed it to waft over him, and he stretched his hands out towards it.

"Ah…" she said behind him, "I was thinking of making some rice balls…as a snack? You know, for when the others get back? And… would you like to make them together?" His ears twitched. Now… was he just imagining the slight change in the pitch of her voice. In its headiness. He closed his eyes for a moment, and took a deep, steadying breath.

"Sure, whatever," he said, turning back to her. "But hell if we're saving any for that damn Rat!"

"Eh…"

They laughed. They joked. Nothing had really changed. He was more aware, as she had become, but that was unavoidable. It didn't mean anything. It couldn't. And Kyo wasn't stupid. He had noticed, of course, that every single time she had mentioned something she thought truly impossible in that weird little story of hers, she had labeled it 'a fairy tale.' Of course he had noticed.

Still, as they stood there, idle happy banter passing between as riceballs materialized on the plates before them, the oven radiating heat, he could not help but think that, to have this forever, forever happy, forever with her… it would be nice. Even if it was only possible in a fairy tale.


End file.
